As if there were really any AAA third-party games for the Wii anyway. I don't see anything like Bioshock or Gears of War on the horizon for Nintendo. Its the same as the Gamecube - the AAA titles will be from Nintendo while everyone else will make ports of games from other consoles.
Doesn't T-Mobile already allow unlocking at the end of the contract? I've had multiple T-Mobile phones, and they've always allowed you to unlock your old phone once your contract expired.
Of course Congresscritters will try to best possible spin on any law they pass, whether or not that law genuinely advances the public interest. The Patriot Act was passed off as protecting us from terrorists. The same was done for the law legalizing NSA wiretaps. The DMCA was passed off as a law to help "starving artists".
Frankly, from what I've seen, the worst laws have the most public interest "spin" around them, because the law isn't capable of standing on its own.
How many cars do you see advertised on TV "Now with cruise control?". It's just assumed to most knowledgeable Mac Users that you can do this.
At least cars come with a visible cruise control knob, and have an entry in the user manual telling you how to operate the feature. Macs have neither. Things like target mode, and integrated spell checking aren't visible to the user. A new user doesn't even know that the feature exists until he/she comes across a reference to it on the Web, or someone else tells him/her. And with the "just plug it in and turn it on" philosophy behind the Mac platform, there's no user manual for you to look at for features.
Given that the firmware on Macs is much more closely integrated with the OS than on PCs, the distinction isn't as sharp on that platform. In any case, my point stands - Macs can do lots of cool things that Apple doesn't tell us they can do.
Now why the hell don't reviews ever mention stuff like that? I'd have bought a Mac for that feature alone.
Perhaps because Apple doesn't publicize the feature either. There are many cool things that the Mac OS can do that aren't well publicized. Another example is universal spell checking, which I also never hear mentioned.
In that case, the upgrade was promised in writing, and shipped as promised. Because there weren't any specifications on the the quality of the upgrade, Microsoft was free to sacrifice quality to get the upgrade out the door. Besides, Software Assurance was supposed to be more like insurance than a contract. If Microsoft released an upgrade during the contract, then you got the upgrade for free (or reduced cost, I'm not sure). But I don't think there was any clause stating that Microsoft had to release an upgrade during the contract period.
We did have a probe parked around Jupiter for a while. It was called Galileo. It spent 8 years documenting Jupiter before it was decommissioned by sending it into the Jovian atmosphere.
Around these parts if someone promises something verbally, not only is it enforceable in court, its considered a lie and bad character to then go back on the promise.
It is indeed bad character on Google's part to go back on a verbal agreement like this. However, to get court enforcement for an agreement like this, you have to have something to backup your hearsay evidence. Saying, "But they said they would have an upgrade," isn't enough. If Ars can produce an e-mail, or a letter, or even a recorded presentation that corroborates their case, they might have some ground to stand on. However, without further evidence, its their word vs. Google's.
By the way, which countries do enforce verbal agreements? Isn't such a system open for abuse - e.g. I can accuse you of promising something you never agreed to?
It looked to me that they signed a contract. Therefore, wouldn't it be breach of contract and be actionable in court?
Nope. From the article:
"Them's the breaks," as they say: the support contracts never guaranteed upgrades.
It looks to me like they never got the upgrade promise in writing, and now they're whining that Google is failing to acknowledge a verbal promise made by the old dev. team. To which I say, "So what?" Isn't the first rule of corporate dealings, "Get it in writing or don't get it at all?"
Price doesn't have to be the only basis for competition. You can compete on service, and quality of product as well. To make an analogy, look at the retail market. Walmart competes on price, and its pretty successful. Target, knowing that it can't beat Walmart on price, competes by having brighter stores, and higher quality goods. Recently, Target has had a higher growth rate than Walmart, indicating that atmosphere and quality are criteria used by consumers to evaluate stores.
Similarly, you don't have to compete on price with Microsoft, and if you do, you'll probably lose. The trick is to go for quality and service - something that Google has been going for, except in this case. That's why the continued disregard of existing Urchin customers was a blunder - it put a black mark against Google's reputation for good customer service.
Well, we already have something like that in the Cassini probe for Saturn. The issue with having a "permanent" research stations is lack of power. That far out, there is very little solar radiation, so power has to come from nuclear batteries, which have a limited lifespan.
If you have problems in production that you don't have in test, then you're not doing your job properly. Ideally, you should be getting problems in test that you don't get in production, as you're pushing your code past realistic limits to see how it fails.
That's exactly the point I'm trying to make. Without the emergence of a "killer app" requiring more bandwidth than is currently available, ISPs in the US and EU have no incentive to lay fatter pipes. VoIP might be that killer app, though.
The choice to build or not to build network infrastucture is a business decision. For some reason, US companies just don't seem to consider it profitable to offer fast inexpensive internet access to Americans.
Its not that. Japan, Korea, and the other "high bandwidth" Asian countries' governments have a much higher degree of involvement with their telecom infrastructure. Essentially, the telecom market in Japan is the same as it was in the US before deregulation. Therefore, the government can mandate and subsidize new infrastructure in a much more direct fashion than it can here.
Just imagine what would happen if everybody unsatisfied with the current laws started their own "revolution", bringing your country into chaos.
I'd imagine that there'd be a lot fewer laws, as only the ones that everyone could agree to would be on the books. I'd also imagine that, eventually people would get sick of all the rebellion and would form a government that'd be agreeable to all.
I'm from Hungary (sorry for my English), and here some far-right groups tried to make a "revolution" and a "real political transformation" last year - of course they failed pathetically.
That's because they didn't have any popular support. Without that kind of support any protest (for right or wrong) will fail. The monks protesting in Burma were crushed too. Does that make their protest wrong?
Nevertheless, it would be terrible if everybody broke the laws they found unjust.
So the mass campaigns of civil disobedience that led to independence for India, civil rights for African Americans in the US, and the end of apartheid in South Africa were terrible?
The XBox could have been the same, save for Microsoft's shortsightedness. It was a fairly powerful PC with DVD support and a hard drive. As the Linux on XBox project shows, its a platform capable of far more than gaming.
Also, I'm finding that the "newer" CF bulbs have lower light output and greatly reduced lifetimes.
That's more quality control than anything else. As demand for CFLs has increased, more and more no-name manufacturers are trying to get in on the action. Increasingly, they are skimping on quality control to try to appeal to price conscious consumers.
Ah, yes. The old "I have nothing to hide, so I don't mind you violating my privacy argument". My response is that this assumes that the government is perfect, i.e. competent enough to interpret all information correctly, 100% of the time, without bias. I don't want to be placed on a no-fly list because of something inopportune I might have said to a friend.
But doesn't UDP have more overhead than TCP? Eh, I guess I don't know that much about this after all.
Not to be too hard on you or anything, but the entire point of UDP is that its a connectionless protocol designed to have less overhead than TCP. UDP is used for things like streaming video and games, where the occasional dropped packet doesn't mean much in the long run, whereas TCP is used for data transfer, where a dropped packet could mean a corrupted binary.
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As if there were really any AAA third-party games for the Wii anyway. I don't see anything like Bioshock or Gears of War on the horizon for Nintendo. Its the same as the Gamecube - the AAA titles will be from Nintendo while everyone else will make ports of games from other consoles.
Doesn't T-Mobile already allow unlocking at the end of the contract? I've had multiple T-Mobile phones, and they've always allowed you to unlock your old phone once your contract expired.
Of course Congresscritters will try to best possible spin on any law they pass, whether or not that law genuinely advances the public interest. The Patriot Act was passed off as protecting us from terrorists. The same was done for the law legalizing NSA wiretaps. The DMCA was passed off as a law to help "starving artists".
Frankly, from what I've seen, the worst laws have the most public interest "spin" around them, because the law isn't capable of standing on its own.
How many cars do you see advertised on TV "Now with cruise control?". It's just assumed to most knowledgeable Mac Users that you can do this.
At least cars come with a visible cruise control knob, and have an entry in the user manual telling you how to operate the feature. Macs have neither. Things like target mode, and integrated spell checking aren't visible to the user. A new user doesn't even know that the feature exists until he/she comes across a reference to it on the Web, or someone else tells him/her. And with the "just plug it in and turn it on" philosophy behind the Mac platform, there's no user manual for you to look at for features.
Given that the firmware on Macs is much more closely integrated with the OS than on PCs, the distinction isn't as sharp on that platform. In any case, my point stands - Macs can do lots of cool things that Apple doesn't tell us they can do.
Now why the hell don't reviews ever mention stuff like that? I'd have bought a Mac for that feature alone.
Perhaps because Apple doesn't publicize the feature either. There are many cool things that the Mac OS can do that aren't well publicized. Another example is universal spell checking, which I also never hear mentioned.
In that case, the upgrade was promised in writing, and shipped as promised. Because there weren't any specifications on the the quality of the upgrade, Microsoft was free to sacrifice quality to get the upgrade out the door. Besides, Software Assurance was supposed to be more like insurance than a contract. If Microsoft released an upgrade during the contract, then you got the upgrade for free (or reduced cost, I'm not sure). But I don't think there was any clause stating that Microsoft had to release an upgrade during the contract period.
We did have a probe parked around Jupiter for a while. It was called Galileo. It spent 8 years documenting Jupiter before it was decommissioned by sending it into the Jovian atmosphere.
Around these parts if someone promises something verbally, not only is it enforceable in court, its considered a lie and bad character to then go back on the promise.
It is indeed bad character on Google's part to go back on a verbal agreement like this. However, to get court enforcement for an agreement like this, you have to have something to backup your hearsay evidence. Saying, "But they said they would have an upgrade," isn't enough. If Ars can produce an e-mail, or a letter, or even a recorded presentation that corroborates their case, they might have some ground to stand on. However, without further evidence, its their word vs. Google's.
By the way, which countries do enforce verbal agreements? Isn't such a system open for abuse - e.g. I can accuse you of promising something you never agreed to?
It looked to me that they signed a contract. Therefore, wouldn't it be breach of contract and be actionable in court?
Nope. From the article:
"Them's the breaks," as they say: the support contracts never guaranteed upgrades.
It looks to me like they never got the upgrade promise in writing, and now they're whining that Google is failing to acknowledge a verbal promise made by the old dev. team. To which I say, "So what?" Isn't the first rule of corporate dealings, "Get it in writing or don't get it at all?"
Ok, I'll bite...
Price doesn't have to be the only basis for competition. You can compete on service, and quality of product as well. To make an analogy, look at the retail market. Walmart competes on price, and its pretty successful. Target, knowing that it can't beat Walmart on price, competes by having brighter stores, and higher quality goods. Recently, Target has had a higher growth rate than Walmart, indicating that atmosphere and quality are criteria used by consumers to evaluate stores.
Similarly, you don't have to compete on price with Microsoft, and if you do, you'll probably lose. The trick is to go for quality and service - something that Google has been going for, except in this case. That's why the continued disregard of existing Urchin customers was a blunder - it put a black mark against Google's reputation for good customer service.
Well, we already have something like that in the Cassini probe for Saturn. The issue with having a "permanent" research stations is lack of power. That far out, there is very little solar radiation, so power has to come from nuclear batteries, which have a limited lifespan.
China is getting extremely rich and is using a lot of their money to build up their military.
And yet, even with all their newfound wealth, the Chinese still spend less than 1/8 on their military than we do.
The only reason that China hasn't taken Taiwan is because of the U.S.
That and because its pretty damned hard to invade an island nation without proper amphibious landing craft, which China does not currently possess.
North Korea hasn't attacked South Korea because of the U.S.
When even your army is dependent on UN food aid, you're hardly in a position to attack anyone.
Military spending is the price of peace. AND freedom.
That's what the military-industrial complex would have you believe...
If you have problems in production that you don't have in test, then you're not doing your job properly. Ideally, you should be getting problems in test that you don't get in production, as you're pushing your code past realistic limits to see how it fails.
New computer users forget to update antivirus. In other news water is wet, and fire is hot. Film at 11...
And maybe after that you can add a tool to allow you to kill "rabbits" with "flu shots" ;-)
That's exactly the point I'm trying to make. Without the emergence of a "killer app" requiring more bandwidth than is currently available, ISPs in the US and EU have no incentive to lay fatter pipes. VoIP might be that killer app, though.
The choice to build or not to build network infrastucture is a business decision. For some reason, US companies just don't seem to consider it profitable to offer fast inexpensive internet access to Americans.
Its not that. Japan, Korea, and the other "high bandwidth" Asian countries' governments have a much higher degree of involvement with their telecom infrastructure. Essentially, the telecom market in Japan is the same as it was in the US before deregulation. Therefore, the government can mandate and subsidize new infrastructure in a much more direct fashion than it can here.
Just imagine what would happen if everybody unsatisfied with the current laws started their own "revolution", bringing your country into chaos.
I'd imagine that there'd be a lot fewer laws, as only the ones that everyone could agree to would be on the books. I'd also imagine that, eventually people would get sick of all the rebellion and would form a government that'd be agreeable to all.
I'm from Hungary (sorry for my English), and here some far-right groups tried to make a "revolution" and a "real political transformation" last year - of course they failed pathetically.
That's because they didn't have any popular support. Without that kind of support any protest (for right or wrong) will fail. The monks protesting in Burma were crushed too. Does that make their protest wrong?
Nevertheless, it would be terrible if everybody broke the laws they found unjust.
So the mass campaigns of civil disobedience that led to independence for India, civil rights for African Americans in the US, and the end of apartheid in South Africa were terrible?
The XBox could have been the same, save for Microsoft's shortsightedness. It was a fairly powerful PC with DVD support and a hard drive. As the Linux on XBox project shows, its a platform capable of far more than gaming.
That's more quality control than anything else. As demand for CFLs has increased, more and more no-name manufacturers are trying to get in on the action. Increasingly, they are skimping on quality control to try to appeal to price conscious consumers.
What about the original XBox? That was basically the same architecture as a PC, but optimized for games.
Ah, yes. The old "I have nothing to hide, so I don't mind you violating my privacy argument". My response is that this assumes that the government is perfect, i.e. competent enough to interpret all information correctly, 100% of the time, without bias. I don't want to be placed on a no-fly list because of something inopportune I might have said to a friend.
How do you get 3/5 of a unit? Did the submitter mean 1.6 million Wii units?
Not to be too hard on you or anything, but the entire point of UDP is that its a connectionless protocol designed to have less overhead than TCP. UDP is used for things like streaming video and games, where the occasional dropped packet doesn't mean much in the long run, whereas TCP is used for data transfer, where a dropped packet could mean a corrupted binary.